


The Honeypot Job

by AndreaLyn



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M, spy AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-19
Updated: 2014-11-23
Packaged: 2018-01-09 05:41:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 19,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1142137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim Kirk's mission is to get to New York and secure his asset, but after a job well done, he chooses to blow off steam with a gorgeous bartender. The next day, Jim finds out that the asset's been moved and someone new has joined the game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Agent James T. Kirk (don’t ask what the T stands for, it’s classified); age 28, the best gun for hire this side of Dallas, has just come off his latest assignment. He’s collected the cash in his pocket, has called home office, and is in the middle of his post-assignment celebration. It requires a cigar, a bar, and the best stuff behind the counter. Usually, it doesn’t include a smoking hot bartender, but Jim does live to be surprised. “Scotch, neat,” he orders, letting his eyes roam up and down the gorgeous piece of man standing behind the bar. 

Six foot one of pure unfettered hotness staring him down with hazel eyes and cute hair.

Jim doesn’t always find someone to fuck after he’s completed a mission, but some night he gets really lucky. “Pour one for yourself, too, would you?” he encourages, slipping the bartender a folded-in-half hundred with a wink.

“Think pretty highly of yourself, do you?” the man replies, words sticky sweet with a lazy accent that curls around the words and makes Jim shiver right down to his toes – god, they don’t really make men like this anymore and it’d be a shame to waste this one. “Lucky for you, I’m thirsty tonight,” he says, snatching the hundred from Jim’s fingers and tucking it in his pocket while he pours two scotches on the bar. “New in town?”

“Passing through,” he replies. “I’m here on business.”

He’s even got his next assignment in hand. There’s a Russian whiz kid hacker the agency wants on their payroll and Jim has been hired to _convince_ him through whatever means necessary that he wants to work for Jim’s employers. He needs to be in New York City by mid-day tomorrow, but that leaves him a whole lot of night to work with.

“Didn’t figure you for a local,” the bartender says, ignoring all the other patrons to drink with Jim. It’s not like there’s many. Jim’s careful and he chooses a bar without many customers in case something goes down. “What’s your name?”

“Kirk Tiberius,” he offers his most-used alibi in these situations, extending a hand. “Pleasure to meet you...”

“Leo,” he says.

“What, no last name?” Jim laughs.

“Leo Smith,” he drawls that obviously fake-name out, but hell, if he were a bartender at a seedy bar, Jim might do the same thing with the barflies who tried to pick him up.

“You’re kind of hot for a Mr. Smith,” Jim appraises, looking him up and down as he nurses his drink. He’s been on this job long enough that he deserves a celebration, but not long enough that he feels needs the liquor to get through the day. “What time do you get off your shift?”

“Nowhere near when you want me off,” Leo drawls.

Jim could wrap himself in that voice of his and practically _die_ , it’s so gorgeous. “Wanna bet?”

“Nope,” Leo replies with a teasing smile. 

Jim likes him. He’s a cut above the usuals that he pulls after a job like this, which is why Jim lets his guard down and breaks one of the few personal rules he has. He orders a second drink without making plans to move on the next job. He never takes his eyes off Leo, knowing he’s going to have to work a little harder for this.

Still, for every time Leo ducks away to serve someone else or heads into the back to stock up, he always does a quick visual check to make sure Jim hasn’t left in the meantime.

He’s got him on the hook.

By the time the last drops of his second drink are done, Jim’s trying to figure out his next step. Jim feels drunk, which is impossible because he’s only had two over the course of a few hours, but maybe this is exhaustion nipping at his heels, mixing with the adrenaline of the just-finished assignment. He ought to be moving on this Russian kid, but the truth is that Jim’s transfixed by the way Leo’s long fingers look as he cleans out the inside of the glassware. 

The night is dying down and Jim’s the last customer left in the bar. 

“Last call, kid,” Leo warns him, leaning back against the counter. He flips the towel over his shoulder and crosses his legs and arms. 

God, he makes for great eye candy. Jim should ask if the agency would hire Leo for all those nights when Jim comes back to his hotel du jour with nothing better to do than flip through the hotel’s local directory and decide where he wants to lay low that night.

Jim might be cashing in on this adrenaline high, but he does something stupid.

He leans right up and out of his stool, reaches over the bar to snag Leo’s shirt with two of his fingers and pulls him closer so he can plant a kiss on him. Messy, clumsy, and definitely not anywhere _near_ to his best, he probably should be ashamed of this kiss; doubly so when Leo laughs and gives him a gentle push back.

“What?” Jim asks.

“Last call is for drinks. If you want to stick your tongue down my throat, you’re gonna need to buy me another one,” Leo informs him.

“Shit,” Jim sighs, but he’s already digging out his wallet again. “All right, pour yourself the fruitiest, sweetest, most sugary crap you’ve got on hand.”

“How about a Pink Kiss?”

“How much does a Pink Kiss cost?”

“Fifteen bucks,” Leo says, already pouring it. “I’m not a cheap date, Kirk.”

“No, you’re not,” Jim agrees, fishing out three fives and setting them on the bar. “I hope it makes your lips really imminently pink and fuckable,” he informs Leo.

Leo glances up after he’s done mixing up the drink – a neon pink and disastrous concoction that could probably burn away a whole city. “Huh,” is all he exhales. “Funny. That’s exactly what my yearbook cites me as. Most Likely To Tease Assholes with an Imminently Pink, Fuckable Mouth.”

He’s saying more words, but the truth is that he’s only making Jim want to see how much of that pink will rub off on his dick.

He shivers at the image of it, watching without even moving an inch as Leo drinks without pausing, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down and teasing Jim when he licks his lips again and again. Jim isn’t sure he’s ever wanted a blowjob more than he does in this very moment.

“Where do you live?” Jim asks before he thinks about how good an idea it is to ask that. He has a job to do. He has a job in New York City and he needs to get up there and he needs to get to that Russian before any other agency can get their hands on him. The problem is that Jim never did think too well with his upstairs brain and he thinks he can multitask.

He knows he’s screwed when Leo pours him a drink after last call, sliding it across the bar. “Close enough that I can start trying to get you pink and fucked before that drink goes to your head.”

“Fuck it,” Jim exhales, knocking back the Scotch. “You’ve got me.”

Leo’s smile is a beautiful thing to behold and right then, Jim knows he’s not making a mistake.

* * *

Usually, Jim wakes up in the morning at the same time without any outside influences helping him. His circadian rhythms are steady and his inner routine keeps him alert. Today, though, he’s groggy and drowsy and his whole body feels like he’s run half a marathon. He doesn’t wake up until he hears an offensive sound in his ear that kind of resembles a bird.

It takes him a minute to realize that’s his phone that’s chirping. 

It’s what wakes him up from that blissed out near coma. He’d prefer to linger with the comfortable feel of Leo’s strong body pressed up against him, but only a few important people have Jim’s phone number. Jim barely opens his eyes to check over his shoulder to confirm that Leo’s still with him, even if Jim has to check his messages. Check and double check and wow, does Leo look good with nothing but a black tank-top and a pair of tight boxer briefs on. He groans and reaches over Leo for his phone.

“I didn’t set a goddamn alarm,” Leo grumbles, turning over and dragging the covers over his head. “Which means you’ve got five seconds to shut that thing off.”

Jim waves him off with a ‘yeah, yeah’ and checks the incoming text to his phone.

ASSET HAS BEEN MOVED, it reads. SOMEONE BEAT YOU THERE. REPORT TO NYC ASAP FOR FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.

_What the fuck_?

“Fuck,” Jim hisses, grabbing his jeans from the foot of the bed. “Fuck!”

“What’s the fuss?” Leo asks, voice swallowed up by his pillow.

“Work!” Jim says, shoving on his socks while searching for his keys. Why can’t he find them? He knew where they were last night. “Fuck!” he shouts in Leo’s face, getting the other sock and falling onto the ground in the process. He takes advantage of his new position to get the sock on, followed by the jeans, and he wonders who could’ve beat him there.

Spock?

Spock’s the kind of spook who knows everything, sneaks around, and whom everyone owes a favour. It would take Spock one phone call before he had the asset in his pocket and he’d do it just to prove that he could be more efficient than Jim. 

There’s also Uhura. She and Gaila have been working a tag-team venture together privately for some security firms and have been freelancing. Jim knows that Uhura’s wanted to save up for a new condo in the city, so she’d definitely be after a hot asset like the Russian. Those are only the friendlies. There’s a whole list of people that Jim doesn’t really get along with that would be happy to steal this out from under him (Nero and Khan being his top two suspects).

They’re not supposed to be involved. This is Jim’s case. This is his win.

“So, guess you’re leaving?” Leo asks, propped up on one elbow as he lies in bed, seemingly unmoved by Jim’s flailing fits of panic.

“Did you not hear the first few vehement ‘fucks’?” Jim demands stringently.

“Heard ‘em, was hoping you meant them in the kind of morning fuck way I really like.”

Jim lets out a pathetic whining noise. He really doesn’t have time for this, but he wants to. Shit, the asset it already lost, who the hell cares if Jim’s an hour late getting up to New York to find out from Pike who snaked him out from under him. Still, he’s got orders to report to headquarters and he doesn’t really want to see what happens if he doesn’t turn up for his debrief. Jim grabs hold of his pants and quickly zips and buttons, all the while staring at Leo with a look that implies there’s a lot of a trouble to be making up for.

“Gimme your number,” Jim says. It’s the only brilliant moment he has this morning, given that it’s being overshadowed by the fact that he might not have a job by the time he gets to the office. If he’s getting fired, he might as well go out with a hot guy’s number in his phone. While he struggles to find his jacket, he tosses his cell at Leo, snapping his fingers to get him to hurry it up. “What are you, ancient?”

“I don’t have a goddamn space phone like you,” he bitches, punching in things like he’s an eighty year old man who’s seen a cell phone for the first time. Jim honestly is starting to wonder whether Leo is secretly a crotchety old man who looks really, really good for his age.

While Old Man Bartender works out how to use technology, Jim sits on the end of the bed and ties up his shoes, glancing over his shoulder when he’s done.

“Are you done? Or do you need to call in the villagers and marvel at the new technology that’s dropped out of the sky.”

Leo throws the phone at Jim’s head, but years of training have taught him how to catch it without getting completely injured. He double-checks that he’s got the number (and there it is, programmed under ‘Don’t Call Me After 10PM’, which is sweet of Leo to think is an option and totally not going to be observed) before he crawls up the bed and kisses Leo firmly. 

“If service at your bar is as good as it was last night, I’m definitely coming back the next time I’m in town,” Jim promises.

“Yeah, and how was the service in my bed?”

Jim grins, already making plans to drop by here again. “Four out of five stars.”

“Ingrate,” Leo huffs. “What happened to the last star?”

“I need something to build up to, don’t I?” Jim blows Leo a kiss before he leaves, picking up speed once he hits the pavement because he knows there’s a ticking time bomb on his career if he doesn’t figure out who got to the Russian before he did. 

It’s going to be a long trip up to New York without an asset to present to Pike, but worse than that, someone out there stole his asset from him and Jim doesn’t even know who. There’s a list of possibilities as long as his arm and none of them have come forward to take credit yet and that? That’s going to bug him. He can’t let this happen again.

He’s Jim Kirk. He’s the best in the business. He _won’t_ let this happen again.


	2. Chapter 2

Jim feels hungover by the time he gets to New York.

He’s not. It’s the combination of losing the job and the fucked out mood Leo put him in after rounds three and four. Jim didn’t actually know a man could be pushed to that kind of edge. As it stands, he looks like shit and the double espresso isn’t helping. He’s pretty sure Pike can see right through him, too.

Jim pries off his sunglasses, sighs, and gets ready to own up to his fate. “Who got him?”

“The Russian was grabbed by another intelligence outfit,” Pike says, dropping the folder on Pavel Chekov on the table. Jim groans when he sees the mark in person. This kid is rumored to be the smartest thing that’s crossed their paths in ages. Scotty has been talking all week about what he’s going to do when they have Chekov on their side. 

Jim feels himself nodding off and away and he jabs himself in the thigh with a pencil to force himself to stay awake. Seriously, he is never allowed to have victory job sex again, not if this is what happens to him as a result. He catches Pike’s disapproving look and he so knows that he deserves it, but it’s not what he needs this morning.

“I have no idea what happened,” Jim swears. “Do we know who got him?”

“From what we hear, it happened quick. The communications team we had monitoring him didn’t even realize what had happened, but Chekov wasn’t there in the morning and there was no trace of him in his apartment.”

“Maybe our asset isn’t as clean as we think?” Jim suggests. “Seriously, no one’s stepped up to take any credit for this?” If it were any of the other agencies they’re used to dealing with, they would have claimed him. “Nothing from Narada? Fleet?” 

“Nothing,” Pike says. “Which means there could be a rogue out there freelancing.”

“And what are they going to do with a kid genius?”

Pike raises his brow. “Think about the things we were planning to ask Chekov to do for us and then start thinking about how terrifying the possibilities are.” He takes his seat, looking at Jim in that unflinching manner that’s always made Jim feel uneasily ready to confess to a dozen crimes and offenses that he didn’t even commit. “What the hell happened? Normally, you’d be in New York by 2AM and have the job half-done?”

It’s true. Usually Jim celebrates and he’s out of there. This is the first time he’s ever stayed the night with one of his conquests and while Leo was hot, he still doesn’t know what makes him so different.

Jim waves a hand uselessly to indicate he’s got nothing (at least nothing he wants to talk about with Pike; he might talk about this with Marcus if she’s around). “Honestly, sir, I screwed up. I should have been there earlier and I wasn’t.”

Pike sighs. “We’ll work on winning him back. Until then, take a break, Jim. Go see Barnett for your debrief and you know the drill. You wait for orders for your next mission and then you’re out in the field again. You didn’t screw up, incidentally. You being at the asset’s apartment eight hours ahead of when you’re expected is an expectation you hold for yourself. It’s not ours. Someone was ahead of us this time. It happens. I’m sure it’ll happen again.” He returns his attention to his paperwork, which is Jim’s indication that the conversation is all but over. “Don’t beat yourself up too much.”

He says it like he knows there’s a fat chance it isn’t going to happen.

Jim nods listlessly, grabbing his phone from the desk and heading out into the hall where Scotty is waiting for him.

“I heard we lost the asset,” Scotty says, giving Jim a pained look. “What happened?”

“Short story? I have no clue. Someone else is out there we haven’t heard about. Can you help me set up a tracking pattern for any suspicious activity that we can’t account for with any of the rivals?” he asks, because if he’s going to lose this one, he might as well do something useful about it. 

Scotty looks at him warily. “And what do I get from doing this?”

“Scotty, isn’t my undying love and tales from the field enough?”

Scotty looks at him with sheer disbelief and Jim knows that he probably has to give up a little more than that. 

“Fine,” Jim sighs. “The next three inventions you come up, I’ll field test. I’ll take you out for lunch for a full week, and you can have my parking spot. Happy?”

“Only when it’s payday,” Scotty replies happily. “I’ll set up the algorithms and get them sent to your phone. Where are you headed next?”

It’s a good question. He can’t imagine Pike will send him back out into the field immediately, so he’s got a few options. He can catch up on his backlog of paperwork or do a couple of his side-projects that he’s been putting off for a while, now. Hell, he could even catch up with old friends and maybe call his brother. 

Or he could go back and see Hot Bartender and see if ‘make it all better’ sex is just as good as ‘celebrate my victory’ sex.

“I’ll tell you when I get back,” Jim says, tapping the face of his phone. “Call me if you have anything.”

* * *

With the failure in hand and Pike’s words echoing in his ears, Jim doesn’t have much to do other than stew in the frustration of his defeat. He’s not exactly on suspension, but Pike’s giving his assignments to other agents like Marcus and Riley, so Jim’s on the bench until he licks his wounds over the Chekov debacle.

With nothing better to do, Jim packs an overnight bag and heads back to his favorite little bar this side of Dallas, hoping to get a pick-me-up in the form of a hot bartender with a mouth on him. It’s mid-day when he gets there and he’s not entirely expecting to see Leo, so when he finds a different bartender polishing glasses, he’s not completely surprised. “Hey,” Jim greets, taking a seat at the bar. “When’s Leo come in?”

“Who?”

“Leo Smith? He worked the late shift the other night. Tall, brown hair, fuckable lips,” Jim describes.

An icy spot of dread starts to build in Jim’s stomach when the current bartender’s look of confusion doesn’t change. _Fuck_. There’s no way. Jim starts to go over the night’s events in his mind again to figure out when he would’ve had a chance to...

Son of a bitch.

The drink. The drink must have been spiked so that Jim would be out of it. Once he’d crashed, he remembers sleeping like the dead. And his phone...

Jim pries his phone out of his pocket, nearly losing it in the fumble to get it open. He tears the whole damn thing apart, but he finds it. Nestled in beside the battery is a little tracker device that’s doubling as a bug. Jim practically smashes the thing between his fingers as he draws it out from his phone and holds it to his lips as he breathes in and out, debating exactly what he wants to say. 

“Leo Smith,” he says, turning away from the bartender so he doesn’t think that Jim’s gone insane. “Cute name. I don’t know who the hell you really are or who you work for, but the Russian was my grab and my asset. Nobody drugs me and traces my phone and gets away with it. I’m coming for you,” Jim warns. “That’s a promise.”

He drops the bug to the ground and smashes it vindictively with his heels as he reassembles the phone and puts a call in to head office.

“Pike, it’s me. I know who grabbed our guy,” he says.

With a deep breath, he knows he’s going to have to own up to his sins.

“I’m pretty sure this one’s on me.”

* * *

Jim’s trip back to New York is burdened under the dread of owning up to his mistake that he got lured into an old trick. He almost wishes he hadn’t destroyed the bug, but Jim’s pretty sure he hasn’t seen the last of good ol’ Leo. He slams his way into the department, letting doors rattle, stomping down the hardwood, and glaring at anyone who gets in his way. 

The only person who holds that stare is Carol Marcus.

She stands in the middle of the hall with her arms crossed, staring at Jim like she’s a high school principal and he’s the young kid in trouble and Jim is not going down that road again. He’s lived that life long enough. His icy glares do nothing on Carol and he knows he’s resigned to giving her an explanation. 

“Your office,” she says curtly. “Now.”

Jim groans, knowing that he’s been made. Not for the first time, he wonders if Carol doesn’t have some kind of security on him that lets her know about his every move. He trudges his way into her office, deliberately dragging his heels to prevent the inevitable.

“You fucked up,” Carol accuses.

“Wow, we’re just jumping past pleasantries now, huh,” Jim says, slumping into one of her chairs. He knows that she’s not going to go easy on him and he even knows that he kind of deserves it, but still...

“Hello, Jim Tiberius,” Carol says pleasantly, smiling in that man-eater kindly way that makes her look like she’s going to start shooting poisonous darts past her teeth. “Since when do you stay the night?”

“I was drugged,” Jim insists.

“Eagerly so,” she reminds him. “You were the one drinking the sedatives he was so eagerly pouring out. Let me guess. It was his arse,” she says. “Or maybe his perfect cock? I told you that your one-night stands were going to get you in trouble and...”

“Oh my god, okay, yes, you can tell me ‘I told you so’ later. Can you please, please help me to figure out what to do next?” Jim actually pleads, hands folded together. “Can you get Scotty to help me start looking for Leo Smith or whoever the hell he is?” 

Carol folds her arms over her chest and looks at him with that icy stare she’s perfected. She has no trouble warming up to a mark when the job calls for it, but she’s no-nonsense and willing to get straight down to business when the job insists upon it. Eventually, she reaches into one of her desk drawers and pulls out a file folder. “You’re very lucky that Scotty adores you half as much as I do,” she says, taking a seat and pushing the folder across the table. “You do attract trouble, Jim.”

Jim slides the folder across the table where he can get a better look, craning his head to the side to read the information they have on his Leo.

“Bones? Seriously? What kind of code name is _Bones_?”

“The kind you earn when they find your first kill with ten percent of his two-hundred-and-six cracked open and showing from your body,” Carol replies. “Still want to sleep with him?”

Jim quietly bit down on the response that he might want to sleep with him even more.

“As far as Scotty and I can tell, he works for a private organization based out of Atlanta. There’s intel that there are two or three others at his level, but chatter can’t confirm who they are. We only know that one of them appears to be some sort of nun and the other a doctor. Obviously as fake as Leo Smith’s bartending credentials, but it’s what we have.”

“Who heads up the organization?” Jim asks, trying not to stare at the way Leo’s lips look incredibly fuckable even in a terrible security footage still. 

Carol smiles widely. It’s terrifying because Jim never knows what’s coming.

“What? Why are you smiling like that? Are you about to kill me?”

“They work for a man named Khan, but the rumour is that they’re looking to advance up the career ladder. It’s not very loud, of course, but it seems Khan’s golden trio is about to take a leap into the unknown and freelance. Of course, if a competing agency were to get to them first...”

“Then we could get our hands on their assets and their skills.”

Carol gives him a sure nod, sliding an address across the desk. “Scotty says that traffic cameras have picked up McCoy at this bar in mid-town. He suggests you get there within the next hour. Be persuasive, Jim,” she advises. “We really do want to get the Russian in our hands and I actually wouldn’t mind it if you managed to recruit some new talent. I’ve been looking to get into the office.”

Jim crumples the address in his palm, trying to quell the fluttering in his chest as he stares at the picture of Leo again.

“What’s his name? I mean, his real name?” he asks, suddenly.

“You’ll have to charm that out of the man himself,” Carol admits. “No one knows. And given his rumoured disposition, I doubt that he’s going to tell anyone. Not even you, Jim.”

“We’ll see,” Jim says, taking that as a challenge he plans to ace.

After all, he doesn’t believe in no-win scenarios.


	3. Chapter 3

Jim’s a master of disguise. Put him in any situation and he’s able to navigate the different waters with ease. That doesn’t mean he likes them all and when he enters the dive bar in mid-town that Bones is supposed to be at, he’s reminded of how much he needs to convince Pike to start giving him the kind of cushier targets that prefer five star hotels and luxury accommodations in places that offer free massages.

This bar is practically rotting away. He feels like if he takes a wrong step, a mildew-laden board is going to come out of the ground and smack him in the face.

His attention doesn’t stay on the surroundings for long, though, because Bones is waiting for him at a large round table with two full whiskeys in front of him. Jim checks that he’s got all his weapons loaded and ready to go before he advances cautiously, counting the number of bystanders that would get involved if this got dirty. 

“If you seriously think I’m going to drink anything from you again, you’re an idiot,” Jim says, taking the opposite seat and flashing the side of his suit jacket so Bones is aware how very armed he is. 

Bones shrugs his shoulder and drags both glasses back towards him. “Your loss, kid.”

“Don’t call me that,” Jim says sharply. 

He knows that he should be playing nicer than this, but the memory of the betrayal is still fresh in his mind and he kind of wants to lash out any way he can – be it verbally, physically, or going for any open wound he can find. No one takes advantage of Jim like that and gets away with it. It’s not supposed to happen. All thoughts of recruiting Bones into the fold fly away when he remembers how severely fucking pissed off he is.

“Why?” Jim demands.

“Why?” Bones echoes with disbelief. The flirtatious smiles are gone, replaced by a hardened edge and a sharp look in his eye that says he’s not going to respond so well if Jim buys him a drink tonight. “You were going after the Russian and we need him.”

“Okay, I’m gonna ask again. Why?” Jim demands. “No one even thought you would be in the market for this job. It’s completely out of your league. What do you need a hacker for?”

Bones looks left and right, casing the room before he leans in to speak to Jim urgently. “I’ve got two colleagues on my level. Smart people, tactical, and they know when things are going downhill as well as I do. Our boss is starting to lose it, taking on jobs from governments who are more than willing to do unmentionable things to their _allies_ and the writing’s on the wall. Pretty soon, I’m gonna be asked to do some things that I don’t think anyone will want witnesses for. We need a hacker so our exit plan works.”

“Khan,” Jim says knowingly. “Khan’s gone insane, so you and your little trio in crime want out? You know, when my agency heard I was coming to talk to you, they wanted me to recruit you.”

“Wouldn’t work out so well.”

“Yeah? Why not?” Jim asks.

“I don’t eat where I crap,” Bones replies, finishing the first drink and moving onto the second quickly. “Look, I’m not saying that my colleagues won’t respond a helluva lot more positively to the offer, but me? As soon as I’m out, if I even get out of this alive, I’m going solo. No more agencies for me.”

Jim knows that going out on your own is a recipe for disaster, but what does he care? The guy sitting across from him drugged him, stole his asset, and is acting like none of it happened. “Where’s Chekov?”

“Safe,” Bones replies, sipping on the second drink like he hadn’t knocked back the first in a matter of mere seconds. “How about as an apology, when he’s done working for us, I’ll give him a business card with your name on it.”

“Would’ve been nicer if you hadn’t had sex with me to purposely steal my mark away.”

Bones smiles wryly and that gets Jim’s curiosity riled.

“What?” Jim asks suspiciously. 

“The sex wasn’t exactly on purpose.” He shrugs, finishing off the rest of his drink. “You’re hot, it’s been a while since I got laid, and I thought, why not?”

That’s what Jim usually thinks! Those are his thoughts to usually have and he’s not sure he likes the tables being turned on him like this. He kind of wishes he’d accepted that drink from Bones, now, because given the mood he’s in, it’s that or he’s going to start grinding his teeth again. He spins in his chair, flagging down the waiter so he can get a drink.

And that’s when he hears the tell-tale click of a gun’s safety being taken off.

“This isn’t happy hour, Jim,” Bones warns. “If that’s your real name.”

“Speaking of names, I was told that if I was extra charming, you might tell me yours.”

Going by the press of the barrel of a gun against his kneecap, Jim’s going to take that as a sign that he’s not about to get lucky. He flashes an extra-charming smile, just in case his ability to schmooze had even been in question. 

“Bones, this is only our second date,” he says, smiling up at the waiter who brings him the vodka on the rocks and gives him the perfect distraction so that Jim can get his gun out, training it on Bones’ ankle. “How about it? You shoot my leg out, I take your foot off, we move into a first story apartment and tell our kids the story of how their dads met?”

“I should’ve shot you the other night,” Bones sighs. “Leave us alone, Jim, and we’ll leave you be. That’s the best deal you’re gonna get tonight. You should take it.” 

“We get Chekov by next week?” Jim knows he’s pushing it by asking for a date, but he really can’t go back to Pike empty-handed. That and Carol will never let him live it down if he doesn’t get some useful intel.

He used to be so good at this. Then he met Leo Smith and got smacked in the face with a whole cautionary tale of why he shouldn’t be getting involved with _people_.

“You’ll get him when you get him.”

Jim has a bad feeling that means that there’s a chance no one is coming out of this alive and he wonders exactly how much Chekov’s been told about this. The kid could be wandering into a suicide mission without even realizing it. Jim keeps the gun trained exactly where it belongs – on the threat. 

“Come on,” Jim wheedles, as if they aren’t in a tense situation. “I’ve seen you naked. You’re seriously not going to tell me your name?”

“Leave us alone and you’ll get the Russian,” Bones says. “Stay out of my way, Jim. This is already going to be a tricky exit and the last thing I need is collateral damage.”

When Jim is sure the gun is away, he holsters his own. Sitting back in his chair, he spreads his legs and tries to look like the picture of nonchalance even though every single neuron in his brain is firing on a level of alertness to make sure he walks out of this heap alive. “Aw, see, Bones? I knew you liked me under all that ‘I’m going to kill you’,” he gruffly impersonates. “You don’t want me to get hurt.”

“I don’t want the extra paperwork,” Bones says, throwing down a wrinkled twenty dollar bill on the table. “And whichever friend of yours is tracking me, tell him I like his car.”

Jim purses his lips together and makes a private note to have a conversation with Scotty again about _not_ taking muscle cars into the field. Especially not bright red ones that practically scream _notice me_.

Jim cranes his head around, enjoying the view of Bones leaving the bar that his tight jeans give him. When he’s gone, Jim sends a message to Head Office that he’s reconciled the situation as best as he can. Somehow, he doesn’t think that’s going to go over very well, but what else can you do?

His phone vibrates a few moments later.

_Struck out, did you?_ it reads, from Carol.

Jim bites his tongue and shoves his phone in his pocket. If the Russian is going to be theirs in a matter of days, they need to start working on back-up plans in case all of this goes south.

And knowing Khan?

Yeah. Things might go incredibly south, incredibly soon.

* * *

Jim’s gut feeling doesn’t turn out to be wrong.

It’s only three days later when Pike pulls him into his office with a crook of his fingers, wearing a grave expression on his face. Jim’s been chatting with Carol, always keeping an eye on the news and on his phone to see if Chekov is theirs yet, but nothing’s come through. Carol leans in, her hair brushing over Jim’s neck. “He looks cross. What did you do?”

“Why do you always assume I’m in trouble?” Jim asks. “I’ m a good agent.”

“Who happened to sleep with the competition.”

“ _Once_ ,” Jim protests, feeling like he’s never going to have a great comeback to that one. He pushes himself from his seat and heads into Pike’s office, wondering what could be happening that has Pike looking so worried.

“Remember that agent you were tracking down earlier in the week,” Pike starts, closing the door behind Jim. “The one you lost our asset to?”

Apparently, it’s National Rub Salt In Jim’s Wound Day. It would’ve been nice if someone had told him so he could’ve booked the streets and run a parade or something. He takes a breath to calm himself before he gets stubborn and argumentative, nodding curtly to acknowledge that he’d been chasing down Bones. 

“Can I ask why, sir?” Jim offers.

“It turns out your new buddy and his friends are either stupider than we thought or someone’s got a big mouth.”

“Sir?”

“Khan’s found out that his top three want to defect,” Pike says, pushing three folders across the desk. “As of this morning, this contract went out to all the major independent agencies.” Jim actually feels the blood rushing from his face, getting lightheaded as he runs his fingers over the three pictures.

There’s Bones, a blonde woman, and another man with dark skin. They all look lethal in these pictures, which makes sense. Khan wants people to know the challenge they’re being presented with. For a dangerous moment, Jim wonders if this is Pike’s way of giving Jim a new job. “Do you want me to...?”

“No,” Pike replies curtly. “The opposite, actually. We want the three of them alive, well, and under our roof. The amount of knowledge, skills, and the assets these three have collectively are any agencies dream.” He sits behind his desk, beginning to reorganize the folder he pulled the pictures from. “Feeling up for a challenge?”

Jim nods, feeling slightly overwhelmed. “What kind of resources will I get for this?”

“Carol will partner with you. She and Chapel, the blonde, they go way back. You’ve got Scotty for whatever tech you need. Get them for us,” Pike says. “You seemed to know where to find Bones the last time. You think you can do that again?”

“I’m guessing I don’t really have a choice,” Jim says, already seeing his life flashing before his eyes at the prospect of going up against Khan and all his terrifying resources and dangerous allies. 

Pike glances up long enough to dismiss Jim with a brush of his hand, which means that there’s nothing more to talk about and he should leave, now. He heads back out into the common area of the office, taking a minute to breathe and process before he heads over to Carol and gives her the good news.

“Well?” Carol asks, having decided that waiting is for suckers.

“When’s the last time you met up with Chapel?”

“Christine?” Carol replies, looking shocked to have heard that very name. “It’s been years. Not since we were both at the Academy, before we decided to pursue other job opportunities.”

“Hope you’re ready for a reunion,” Jim says. “Because we get to go hunt her, Bones, and their last ally down before the rest of the community kills them for a ridiculous amount of dirty money.”

Carol slings her arm around Jim’s shoulder. “Is that all?” she jokes brightly. “Easy-peasy, then. Besides, look at it this way. You’ll get to see Bones’ fuckable lips again.”

“He definitely is gonna have to use them to pay me back for this one,” Jim grumbles.


	4. Chapter 4

Jim’s starting to get the idea that, last time, Bones had wanted to be found. The contract on his head has been out for a full forty-eight hours now and though he and Carol have combed the city, there’s no trace of him, Chapel, or the third mystery man. At least they have a name for him now, having ID’ed him as M’Benga. They’ve been running ops out of Jim’s apartment, which has been plastered with photos of the three.

And it turns out that having pictures of Bones splayed on the walls is a recipe for giving Jim a whole lot of wet dreams. It feels like they’ve met a whole lot more than twice because the array and variety of Jim’s dreams mean that they’ve been together in a number of compromising positions and reality just isn’t that good to Jim.

He wakes up on day three as groggy as ever, stumbling bleary-eyed and messy-haired into the kitchen to get coffee before they hit the ground running. Carol is already awake, looking perfect in her blue bandage dress, legs crossed as she neatly writes in the log. 

“Morning,” she says. “Did Bones keep you up all night again? I heard you moaning his name.”

“As soon as this job is over, you cannot be within five feet of me while I’m sleeping,” Jim warns, yawning deeply. “It gives you way too much ammunition.” He feels like he’s had a rough night, like he hasn’t slept at all, when he knows that isn’t the case. “Any news while I was out?” They’ve been taking shifts to make sure someone’s always awake.

“Scotty has a lead for us,” she confirms. “Pennsylvania. There’s a house that’s registered to an old alias of Chapel’s. It could very well be a distant relative of her mother’s, but it could be them.” She leans forward to grab her cup of coffee. “I’ve requisitioned a car. You’re driving.”

“I’m not even awake yet!” Jim protests.

“Hurry, then!” she calls as she heads to the door.

Jim stares forlornly at the cup of coffee sitting on the table in front of him. “You will never be mine,” he informs the cup, with its seductive steam swirling upwards. He sighs when Carol starts honking the horn downstairs, which means she’s probably been up for hours, planning exactly this. 

He swears under his breath and does the stupid thing of swallowing two large gulps of piping hot coffee, hissing and swearing as he rushes to pack an overnight bag, his weapons, and get dressed within five minutes. 

By the time he gets downstairs to the car, he’s sweating.

“Your socks don’t match,” Carol lazily informs him, peering over the rim of her sunglasses at the fact that his socks don’t match. “Also, I bought you a coffee,” she adds, which is the only reason Jim doesn’t take off his socks right then and there and throw them in her face. He grabs the paper cup like it’s a lifeline, drinking it deeply. 

He’s driving because she likes to nap while the landscapes pass and Jim always preferred being in control. He’s not sure what he did to earn it, but the drive to Pennsylvania passes easily enough, even if it’s six hours longer than Jim wants it to be. He shifts the car into park, staring up at the looming cabin before glancing back to Carol.

“You should probably go in,” Jim says. 

Part of him wants to believe that maybe Bones is here, but that’s a long shot. This is Chapel’s safe place, belonging to her family, and that’s Carol’s connection. He’s started to feel beyond twitchy. The more time that passes, the more Jim worries that Bones is going to walk down the wrong alley and he’s going to get himself into trouble.

Never mind that he’s a totally capable agent and can handle himself. This is just professional worry. 

That’s totally it.

Carol touches up her lipstick in the rear-view mirror and flashes Jim a bright grin that would have any smart man reaching for a weapon. He grabs her magazine and settles into reading while she heads inside. His gun is loaded and ready to go in case he gets the signal for backup, but it’s quiet. An hour later, Jim heads to the door to check and make sure no one’s been killed incredibly quietly.

When he knocks at the door, it’s pulled open by a blonde woman he assumes to be Christine Chapel.

She takes a long look at him, giving a thoughtful little noise and then wrinkles her nose. “You’re definitely not as attractive as he described,” is what she has to say.

That’s very interesting to Jim because that means that Bones has been describing him and okay, sure, so it might have only been for warning, but he’s going to take that as a victory today. He flashes the most charming grin he possesses, giving her all he’s got. She doesn’t seem very impressed, which makes Jim think that she and Carol are closer than he’d thought. “Can I come in?” he asks.

“Let him in, he’s harmless,” Carol summons, from where she’s drinking white wine on the couch.

“I was coming in to check that you were still alive,” Jim says, offended that he hadn’t been invited inside. “And you’re drinking wine? I read the same article seven times biding my time.”

Carol leans forward to pop a cube of cheese past her lips. “You didn’t ask, did you,” she teases. “Christine, meet Jim, officially,” she says, waving her hand between the two of them to make introductions. “You both came at different, but very important times in my life, so there’s no need to be jealous. After all, we’re all on the same side, now.”

“She joined?”

“Yes, I joined,” Chapel interrupts. “And I’m right here.”

Jim shouldn’t ignore the great news that this is, but he’s kind of only interested in Chapel passively. After all, it’s good news that they’ve got one in and only two to go, but he’s pretty preoccupied with the one who got away. “And your colleagues?”

Chapel’s smirk is devilish. “M’Benga will go where I go. He’s one phone call away from joining,” she assures.

Jim is dying a little, inside, trying not to look too interested when the only thing he wants to do is ask about Bones. It’s not that he cares about him or anything. It’s not like he’s pissed off that Bones got a leg-up on him. It’s totally only because Bones’ life is on the line and he could die. That is absolutely and one hundred percent the only reason that Jim cares.

And yeah, so maybe he was incredible in bed.

“He’s not coming,” Chapel says with a playful smile, when Jim lets the silence draw out too long. “He made it very clear when we left Khan that he was done with agencies.”

“Even if flying solo is going to get him killed?”

“He’s stupid enough to think he can take Khan on himself,” Chapel replies, sipping at her wine. “Luckily, Geoff and I know that, so we’ve had plans in place. It seems we also have an agency’s resources at our disposal, too,” she says with a flattering smile. “Carol, how many satellites did you say we could use?”

“As many as it takes,” she replies. 

“So,” Jim says, pointing at Chapel. “Is she coming back with us in the car? Because I call shotgun not-driver, if so.” 

Carol and Christine exchange a look and then look at Jim with that tried and tested look his own mother had given him for years as a child. It’s the one that says he’s not going to get his way, even if they’d considered giving in for a minute, just to humour him. 

Jim sighs, palming the car keys in his hand. “Fine,” he grumbles. “Only because you’ve both been drinking and we’re not hanging around long enough for both of you to sober up. C’mon, we gotta get to Bones before he becomes bits of Khan’s worked out rage.”

“He’s got a safe place.” Christine promises.

“Yeah, and if you know it, if M’Benga knows it, then I’m pretty sure Khan’s gonna know about it, too,” Jim points out darkly, packing up the girls’ things for them and hauling them to the car, trying to ignore the jittery feeling he’s begun to get. 

Bones betrayed him. He used him for sex.

Yeah, he’s still mad at him, but Jim kind of wants the option to shout in his face a whole lot and if Bones is dead in a thousand little pieces, then Jim doesn’t really get that option. Step one in the plan involves getting Bones to safety and using as many powers of persuasion it takes to get him to join up.

He’s pretty sure step two is definitely going to involve some payback.

(And maybe step three is getting back in bed with him, but Jim isn’t consciously thinking that far ahead right now)

Christine and Carol seem to at least understand Jim’s need for the rush, or they’re humouring him, but either way, they’re in the car within five minutes. Jim’s already doing the math as to when they can back to New York, which is where he assumes they’re going. Before he hits the highway, though, Christine reaches up from the backseat and gives his knuckles a light rap.

“Nope,” she says, pointing north.

“What, where’s his safe house?”

Chapel grins at him. “Somewhere that Khan would never think to look. The best part is that he’s got a whole backstory and false identity he uses when he’s up there.”

“Up there?” Jim echoes.

“Montreal, _cherie_ ,” Chapel says, wiggling her fingers at him with a coy wave. “We need to go pick up our lumberjack who dabbles in maple syrup harvesting in the off season.”

In that moment, Jim’s respect for Christine leaps up vaults and bounds.

He’s so occupied with being pleased at the plaid-clad image in his mind that he doesn’t think about Bones speaking French, doesn’t let himself imagine the words whispered into his ear while Bones fucks him. Sure, those thoughts occur to him later, but it takes a while for them to really, really hit. 

He takes in a deep breath, but it definitely comes across as labored, given the fact that his brain has turned traitor and has run away with his imagination. 

“You can’t be serious.”

“Don’t worry,” Chapel promise. “We won’t leave before many incriminating pictures are taken.” 

Jim doesn’t know if he’ll be able to stop at pictures, but he guesses that he can live with that. “So, what’s the story with you three? I mean, me and Carol, we met ages ago and we kind of just absorbed Scotty, but Khan? How the hell do you go out into the world with skills like yours and end up like a maniac like him?”

Jim glances at Chapel in the rearview mirror as she shrugs gracefully. “He wasn’t always like this. Something happened with part of his crew and he started to get...dark.” Her smile turns strained as she gives Jim another shrug. “We began to see the writing on the wall. We knew we had to get out, so we started to make our plans. I suppose we never counted on being such hot commodities.”

Carol smirks at her over her shoulder. “Honestly, Christine, with legs like yours, you can’t be surprised.”

Okay, maybe Jim’s going to go crazy in this very car before they even reach Canada.

“If you two are going to make out in the back of the car, at least let me pull over so I can watch,” he pleads, knowing that getting smacked in the face is something he completely deserves. He hides his smile, because even if they’re being entirely cruel to him, they’re also helping get him to Bones. “Fine,” he belabours out the world, like it’s a really difficult thing. “I guess I’ll just drive us until we hit a maple-syrup farm manned by a really hot lumberjack.”

“He’s going to kill me when he sees you,” Chapel admits with a warm laugh, not sounding very upset. 

And Jim’s going to take that as good news.


	5. Chapter 5

The excitement of their task and who they’re going to fades around hour three of the drive and Jim spends the rest of the trip vaguely miserable, tired of seeing the same countryside pass him by. Upstate New York couldn’t be duller and as night falls, he urges Carol and Christine to check their phones for any activity.

“Everything’s quiet in New York City,” Carol reports. “Scotty is upset you’re missing out on movie night.”

“M’Benga is in Chicago, says that Khan’s attention is elsewhere. Khan thinks Bones might have gone down to Georgia to find old family, he’s dispatched two of his crew after him,” Christine narrates, typing away. “I’ll tell him to head to New York, meet up with Pike and Scotty.” At Jim’s surprised look, she clucks her tongue. “We know every inch of your infrastructure. Don’t look so surprised.” 

“Does that mean you know my shoe size?”

“Among other sizes,” Chapel coolly replies.

Carol leans in, helping pointing towards his crotch. “I think Bones told her,” she mock-whispers.

Christine nods without even looking up from her phone to confirm. 

Jim has nothing to be ashamed of in that department, so he winks at her in the rear-view mirror and catches her brief smile of amusement. She might be a bit cooler to warm than Carol had been, but Jim senses that they’re going to be good friends by the time this is all done. It helps, too, given that Jim could use the number of people he trusts to go up.

“Any tips on what I should use to hook him in?” Jim asks, because the last time they had a conversation, it hadn’t exactly gone well.

“You have to wear him down, like a file,” Christine advises. “Deep down, he already knows he wants to make the switch to a new agency. He understands the security of it, knows that it’s the smart play, but he’s too stubborn by far and lives under this strange fantasy that he can have a normal life if he just gives this up.”

Jim arches his brow, giving Christine a curious look. “He can’t?”

“He tried, once. It didn’t go well. Besides, Khan won’t stop going after him. Alone, he doesn’t stand much of a chance,” she says, a grim look on her face. “If he’s got allies and an organization at his fingertips, he might even come out of this alive.”

“So, basically, he hates logic?”

Christine smirks. “He might actually punch you if you try it. He works on emotion and right now, his core emotion is ‘leave me alone’. He’s literally locked himself away in a cabin in the Canadian wilderness. I mean, I won’t be surprised if we find him looking like he’s already begun his transformation into half-bear.”

“I do like my men hairy,” Jim admits, not bothering to mention that he’ll take Bones looking like anything. Despite the fact that they’ve gotten off to a rocky start, there’s a whole heap of promise that lies with the man – especially if they end up playing for the same side. “How much longer?”

“We’re almost there. We crossed the border fifteen minutes back. Another hour on this highway, then we take a turn.”

“It’s almost like he wanted to completely isolate himself,” Jim scoffs. If it weren’t for the fact that Christine probably gets first dibs on smacking Bones upside the head for the disappearing act, he’d so be in line to point out the stupidity of this when Khan is eventually going to find him. Actually, that does make him slightly wary. “Maybe uh, maybe we should give him a five minutes heads up. Not long enough to run, but long enough to disarm any traps. I mean, I’m all for new recruits, but not at the cost of my own life.”

“I’ll call him when we’re two minutes away,” Christine says, tapping out texts on her phone. “I’ll say it’s just me coming to visit.”

“So I should watch out for guns anyway?” Jim checks.

“You’d be smart to, yes.” 

Jim starts to mentally prepare for whatever horror might be waiting for him in Canada, which is actually a pretty standard thing to be worried about. Still, he’d rather it didn’t come at Bones’ hand, not when he’s trying to make nice and recruit the man into a better company with less psychopaths and a _way_ better dental plan.

By the time they hit the long, winding driveway, Jim is starting to worry about this. 

“Okay,” Christine says. “I sent him a text that I’m here with Carol. Jim, stay behind a few steps. Watch our backs. We don’t know if Khan sent someone up here, just in case his other moves have been a diversion.”

Yeah, Jim thinks, they definitely need to get Bones less insane coworkers.

He waits in the car, loading up his pistols (that had been kept sturdily hidden while at customs) and counts to sixty seconds before he follows the girls, the both of them arm-in-arm like they’re on a quaint little vacation to a country cottage. Looking at them, you wouldn’t know that between Carol and Christine, they could kill you in a dozen different ways before even blinking. 

Eventually, he gets a text alert from Carol that says: _Come inside the house, but do it slowly. Also, be prepared._

He’s been prepared the entire drive up here, even if he’s still not sure what the hell he’s about to walk into. The driveway is picturesque and quaint in a country kind of way that makes Jim realize that he could never leave the city and live in a place like this. It’s too quiet, it’s too green. There’d never be enough to do.

That thought dies in his mind when he crosses the threshold and finds Bones pouring coffee for the girls.

He takes that back.

There’s a lot to do in the area if this is what Bones looks like in the Canadian wilds. It’s only been a few days since Jim last saw Bones, but he’s made a transition into hot hobo-esque lumberjack with aplomb. His beard’s growing in salt and pepper, he’s wearing tight-hugging plaid like a model, and the jeans don’t leave much to the imagination. 

He also smells like maple syrup. 

Bones glances up, making a face when he sees their new guest.

“I was kind of hoping you were pulling my leg when you said Jim Kirk was in the car,” he drawls.

“I thought you’d be pleased,” Christine replies, dropping two sugarcubes into her coffee. “You called me after you slept with him with such rave reviews.”

If Jim’s ever had an unkind thought about Christine, he takes it back after hearing that alone. He loves her more than anyone else in the world right now and that includes Scotty. If she can dig up some evidence via text, she might shoot to the top of the list and beat out his own damn family for best person ever. He flashes Bones a cocky smirk, basking in the first feeling of one-upmanship he’s felt with this man.

“Don’t worry, I said nice things about you, too,” Jim assures. “Mostly, your mouth.”

“It is very nice,” Carol offers politely as she nods, patting the seat beside her.

Jim takes cover by sitting between the two women, on the thinking that Bones isn’t going to do something drastic when he’s in between two people that Bones doesn’t seem to mind very much. He leans forward and takes the remaining cup of coffee, even though he knows it doesn’t belong to him. “So have they told you the deal, yet?”

Bones opens his mouth, but he doesn’t protest. Instead, he shakes his head and settles into the recliner, his white t-shirt pulling taut against his chest. “I already said no.”

“Weird,” Jim says. “They’ve only been inside for all of five minutes. They told you the whole plan and you’ve already said no? I don’t think you listened very hard.”

“I didn’t need to,” Bones retorts almost immediately. “I don’t want an agency. I want to be left alone.”

“Yeah. I mean, okay,” Jim says, his listless demeanor a put-on. “I mean, it’s all good until Khan figures out that you’re here. And, I mean, sure, you’re a badass,” he says with an eyeroll. “But I’m pretty sure that six guys with guns are still gonna kill you just as much, regardless of how good you look with a knife in your hand.”

Bones presses his lips together until they vanish, but he doesn’t say anything.

Good. Maybe Jim is getting through to him.

Jim continues with his lazy act, stretching out until his feet are on top of the coffee table and he’s as relaxed as you can get. “I mean, if you have a death wish, that’s a different story, but I kind of thought you weren’t that kind of guy. Christine definitely wouldn’t want you dead. I mean, me neither, but I have a vested interest in your ass.”

“You really thought this was the best idea?” Bones asks, of Christine. “I’m going outside. Y’all are welcome to stay, but I’m not feeding you dinner.” He hauls on his parka angrily and storms outside. Jim doesn’t even bother waiting or grabbing any outerwear before he follows, not five steps behind.

He didn’t think you could crunch that angrily in snow, but Bones is proving him wrong.

“What the hell, kid! I told you to stay inside!”

“Actually, you didn’t,” Jim replies pedantically. “You were an ass, but you basically said I could stay, but you’d let me starve. Totally different things.” He keeps following Bones, right up to where he’s got a maple syrup shack. “Wow,” Jim draws out the word. “You were totally serious about this whole Canadian in the wilderness thing. Were you gonna sit down tonight with a Labatt and some poutine, eh?”

The responding glare is nowhere near worth that joke.

“Seriously, what is the big deal? You join an agency!”

“I don’t want to lose my freedom!” Bones snaps.

“Well, you’re not very free right now!” Jim shouts right back, his voice escalating past the calm it’s been sitting at for the last while. “You’re trapped. You’re trapped in your own safe house, but you’re trapped here and the sooner you see that, the sooner you’ll figure out that joining forces with someone else doesn’t have to mean that you give everything up! For fuck’s sake, write a few clauses into your contract if you’re so desperate! Pike wants you badly enough that you could ask for a pink elephant and you’d get it.”

That doesn’t seem to be what Bones is expecting because Jim’s never seen Bones so slack-jawed and dumb-looking before.

“Oh my god,” Jim says, when it hits him. “You seriously never thought about your own power in this situation, did you?”

Bones, tellingly, doesn’t answer.

“You could have anything you wanted. If you wanted to live out here alone, Pike would let you so long as you turned up for assignments! He’d put in a security system and send a guard out to live with you and sing lumberjack songs in French!” To some degree, Jim kind of wanted that to be him.

He looks excellent in plaid, after all.

“Shut up, Jim,” Bones mutters.

“No way, I’m never letting you live this one down,” Jim scoffs. “Is that actually maple syrup?” he asks with interest, when he sees what Bones is doing. “Real, live...”

He doesn’t have to keep asking because Bones holds out snow in his palms, maple syrup forming a divot in the middle of it. 

“Go on,” he coaxes. “It’s not I haven’t witnessed your ridiculous sweet tooth already. You had the worst taste in drinks.”

Jim’s not exactly able to argue that, but when the snow touches his lower lip, bullets start raining down on them, stealing away Jim’s chance to indulge his sweet tooth. His first impulse is to forcibly tackle Bones to the ground with all his weight, simultaneously drawing out his Glock while he does, shooting in the direction the attack came from, ignoring the fact his ass is comfortably positioned on Bones’ chest and he’s basically using him as a stool.

“Jim!”

“Shut up!” Jim hisses over his shoulder, trying to take out their attacker, but the bullets are coming from two points, which means that whoever came up here to take care of Bones was smart enough to do it with company. He lets out a frustrated sound and gets out his other gun, firing one after the other. 

He hears a groan of pain, which means he’s got one hit. 

“Where are they, Jim?” comes Carol’s voice.

“Northwest,” Jim shouts back. 

Two steady, sure shots from Carol’s gun and the Canadian wilderness falls into silence again. Jim is still sitting comfortably on top of Bones like he has no intention of leaving, but there are splatters of blood in the snow and Jim stares at the graze on his arm, biting out a curse. “I really wanted to try that maple syrup,” he says to himself, spinning until he’s straddling Bones, keeping him from moving. “Convinced yet?” he demands. “Or do you want to get shot at some more before you realized _nowhere is safe right now_ , so you might as well have some backup.”

Bones doesn’t look too happy, his eyes fixated on the wound on Jim’s arm.

“Get off me and get inside. While I patch up that wound of yours,” he says, a dark look coming over his expression, “Then we’ll talk.”

Foreboding and promising all in one go. That’s Jim’s language.


	6. Chapter 6

Bones leads him into the washroom of the cabin after assembling a med-kit, bandages, hydrogen peroxide, and a set of tools that would make any field surgeon jealous. “How often do you do this?” Jim wonders. “Because rumors are that you prefer to do this the other way around, where you’re using those tools to take someone apart.”

“You of all people ought to know you shouldn’t listen to rumors,” Bones says idly, prodding at the wound and watching the sluggish bleed before he nods his head and starts to get to work cleaning it out. 

Jim’s been through worse, but he’s never been able to stop himself from wincing when the first sting of the alcohol washes over him, disinfecting the wound. Then again, he tries not to make a habit out of getting shot. It only takes one bullet in the wrong place to go from injured to dead. 

“I thought that’s how you got the nickname.”

“I got the nickname because I was an orthopedic surgeon before things fell apart and I had a job change.” 

Jim gives Bones a look of surprise, figuring that he wouldn’t get this kind of information until they’d been coworkers for a while and things had thawed between them. It looks like things are ahead of schedule and he’s getting more than he bargained for. He settles on the closed toilet seat, legs splayed apart to let Bones stand in between his knees, starting to patch him up. 

“So, does that mean I get to know your real name? Or whatever alias you want to give me today?”

Bones stares at the wound for a long time, like he’s debating the merit of telling Jim. “McCoy,” he finally says, breathing in deeply before giving Jim a shrug that says he’s made his bed, he might as well lie in it, now. “My name’s McCoy. The Leonard part is one I willingly changed.”

“You didn’t exactly stray very far, _Leo_ ,” Jim says pointedly, letting out an awful cry when Bones works at the stitches with more menace than Jim feels he deserves. “Is that for finding out your name? Should I just call you You-Know-Who?” Hissing, he has to admit that at least Bones is quick with his stitches. Jim’s suffered a lot of inept field surgeons in his time.

Of course, that also has a lot to do with the fact that Jim’s terrible when it comes to getting injured in the field, but one would think that Pike would figure that out and start sending people with him that knew how to patch up a wound.

“Bodies are disposed!” Christine calls from the foyer. “I reset your traps.”

“How’s Jim?” Carol asks.

“He’ll live,” Bones says, catching Jim’s eye and giving him the kind of smile that makes Jim think that things between them might actually thaw faster than he’d expected. Considering their situation, this is a bad time to try for a kiss, but it’s the kind of thought that Jim keeps in the back of his mind, seeing as he wants to try for that bridge sometime soon. 

Once the wound is stitched up, Jim tests out the mobility and when it’s acceptable, he’s on his feet, nodding towards Bones and the cabinets around him. “Start packing.”

“What the hell? There’s probably another team waiting out there for us.”

“Yeah, and there’s four of us with weapons and I’m kind of pissed that I got shot, so...?” Jim waits for a better reason not to try and get out. “We need to get back to New York City so you can tell Pike _everything_ and then we can go after Khan together. Once he’s out of the picture, you’ll be safe to do whatever you want. Consider it a job interview for me and the agency. If you like what we do, Pike can draft you up a contract with all the independence you want,” he offers, hoping it sounds as inviting as it did in his head.

“Yeah?” McCoy asks. “You’re not going to push and prod and poke until you get what you want?”

Jim scoffs, helping himself to some bandages. “Who said I wouldn’t do that? That just comes with the territory of knowing me.” 

Bones scowls and looks incredibly adorable doing it, which isn’t something Jim plans on telling him. He does value his life. 

“So, where’s the weapons stash?”

“I’ll get it. You load up on as many drugs and medical equipment as you can.”

Jim nods, waiting for Bones to leave so he can dump everything into the satchel, trying not to feel overwhelmed with how things might be changing and in his favour. Jim sends Pike a quick text, telling him to be prepared with contracts and maybe to buy some of the pastries from that great shop two blocks away from the office.

When he gets back to the main room, everyone else is ready to go and Jim has a bag full of drugs. “I’m not driving,” Jim says, waggling his brows at Bones. “Wanna ride in the backseat with me? I can show you some of the other perks of joining the agency that involve my lips, yours, and...”

Bones shoots him a glare.

“No?” Jim says. “Too much?”

“He isn’t joking about his lips being a perk,” Carol offers, zipping up her leather jacket as she grabs some of the bags. “I once had the pleasure of an undercover assignment as his girlfriend and I don’t think I’ve been better kissed.”

“I might have to find out,” Christine says.

Jim doesn’t think he’s imagining the delicious growl that Bones lets loose, which is probably somewhere along the lines of him trying to ward Christine away from him, but he’d like to think it has more to do with the fact that Bones is just a little bit jealous. Even if he’s not, Jim’s going to run with that.

“Come on,” Bones says. “We got a lot of driving to do and people who want to kill us somewhere along the way.”

* * *

They’re thirty minutes outside New York when the call from Scotty comes in. 

“Jim,” he starts, a slightly frantic note in the edge of his voice which makes Jim fumble for his gun and whatever other weapon he can reach, frightened about the fact that Scotty sounds so unnerved. “There are police reports coming in from your flat. Men with guns camped out, smoke...”

Jim’s grip on his phone tightens as he struggles to find his voice. “What the hell?”

_What is it?_ Bones mouths at him, but Jim doesn’t have time to focus on him. 

“Scotty, can you get someone over there and see if they can get it out?”

“Already on it, thought you’d like the heads up in case you wanted to go there first.”

“Thanks, Scotty,” Jim says.

He doesn’t understand. Why the hell would someone be torching his place? With the exception of the man beside him in the car, Jim’s been impeccable about keeping his record clean so no one can find him. It takes him a second to figure out that the man beside him being the exception, maybe there’s more to this than he’d thought.

“Bones,” Jim says, starting to get a good idea about why his apartment is ash and cinders. “Who’d you tell about me?”

“What the hell?” Bones replies, but he’s not looking at Jim, averting his eyes like he’s got something to be guilty about. “Jim, what are you talking about?”

“My apartment’s been burned to the ground and it’s got a security presence,” Jim says. “No one knows about that place. Plus, I’m not convinced they aren’t Khan’s guys, so who did you tell about me and what did you say?”

Bones stares out the window, breathing out slowly. “There might have been something I said when I was in the office to someone I thought I could trust. God _damn_ it, Ayel,” he hisses. 

“What did you say?” Jim asks, horrified and fascinated. What could Bones have said that has Khan so interested in him? It’s not like Bones had much time to give up too much intel, but the possibilities that are right in front of him make him half desperate to know.

Bones pinches the bridge of his nose, grimacing like he’s not going to enjoy this.

“Just tell him,” Christine says, from the front seat.

“Fine,” Bones bites out. “After I secured Chekov in the office, I told Ayel that there was this guy I met at the bar last night, that he worked for an opposing agency, which was a real damn shame because he was the first guy in a while that actually charmed me,” he growls out the words, sounding pissed to have to give any of them up. “And that I liked him.”

“And you gave them my name?”

“Yeah,” Bones says, breathing out slowly. “Yeah, I’m seeing that mistake now for what it is.”

“Well, you’re paying for the fire damage,” Jim informs him. He lets out a scoff of disbelief, unable to process the fact that his house is scorched and that maybe whatever he feels for Bones isn’t exactly unreciprocated. Fuck, this day is definitely like no other that Jim’s had in a long, long time. “We need to get to the office before they figure out we’re back in town and make a move on any of us.” He tries to ignore the thrill he feels at knowing that Bones isn’t as disaffected as he’s acting, because his ego had been taking a real bruising for a while there. He also thinks this counts as a reason to hold things over Bones’ head for a long, long time to come.

That is, if they get out of this alive. 

Jim focuses on a plan the rest of the drive in, seeing as he doesn’t want things to get too personal with Christine and Carol in the car, but as soon as they drop them off to go park the car, all holds are off.

“So,” Jim says, smirking confidently. “I wasn’t just some one night stand.”

“You were the definition of it,” Bones says. “I can’t help it if you’re an attractive one.”

“You know, when this is all over, I think I should show you around New York City.”

“I lived here for two years.”

“Come on, man,” Jim says in protest, giving Bones a disbelieving look. “I’m trying to make a move, here.” From the knowing smirk on Bones’ lips, he absolutely one-hundred percent knows that, and is giving Jim grief. If this is going to be how their working relationship works, then Jim seriously needs to start drinking more. 

Bones cranes his head upwards, taking in the office building that’s looming over them. 

“So this is you?”

“All forty-eight floors of it, even if the first twenty-eight are getting rented out. Pike’s all about the money-making opportunities,” Jim says, digging his pass out of his pockets and cuffing Bones on the elbow to get him to move along and keep up before they get pinned down in the middle of the street by some of Khan’s guys. “Seeing as I don’t exactly have a place to live now...”

“Sorry.”

“...I’ll probably be sleeping in my office.”

Jim walks backwards through the lobby, making sure to lay that devastating smile of charm and class on Bones. “What?” Bones asks warily, as Jim holds the elevator doors open for him.

“Nothing,” Jim replies innocently. “I was just thinking that you’re more than welcome to join me.” It’s probably not the right thing to say, considering how he gets a punch in the shoulder that feels like if it doesn’t bruise, then it’d been intended to. He rubs at the spot, giving Bones a glare that says this isn’t even his problem to deal with and he is (dealing, that is). “I mean, it’s that or we can go to your place, which is...”

“I might be considering working for your group, but that’s classified.”

“Perfect. How do we unclassify it?” Jim says brightly. 

“Help me take down Khan,” Bones says, letting Jim go first as the elevator doors open. “You start with that and I’ll be willing to pay you back with all kinds of perks.”

Jim knows exactly where they need to start. “C’mon,” he says, holding onto the promise of all those perks he plans on cashing in with Bones as soon as this is done – provided they make it out of this alive, of course. “I think it’s time for you to meet Scotty.”


	7. Chapter 7

“So, this is him,” Scotty says with a devilish smirk on his face and the attitude of a man who plans on giving Jim a hard time for the next decade. He pauses with the device he’s fiddling with to give Bones a proper onceover. “You know, I thought he’d be taller.” Which is a lie, because Jim had painted a fully accurate picture and he can’t help it if Bones is actually drop dead gorgeous.

Bones shoots him a knowing glance from over some of the half-finished tech-ware.

“Looks like I wasn’t the only one running my mouth to coworkers.”

“Yeah, well, Scotty didn’t go to your apartment and burn it down,” Jim counters automatically with a smirk. “Which, I think, is one more reason you should work here. Your coworkers would all be adjusted and sane.”

“Except you,” Bones points out. “Who stalked his one night stand to get some kind of revenge.”

“People don’t do that to me, I...” he trails off, because ‘I do that to people’ isn’t the best hook with someone that you want to spend more time with and it’s definitely not a great lead-in to asking for a second date. He clears his throat when Bones gives him a look that says he knows exactly where he’d been going with those words. “Scotty!” he says brightly. “What’ve you got for us?”

“I heard through the grapevine that Khan uses the most modern tech,” he says, looking to Bones for confirmation, who gives it with a nod of his head. Scotty’s grin widens as he lifts up the device in his hands. “In that case, we go Stone Age.”

“EMP?” Bones asks, stepping forward and studying it. “What about us?”

“It’s really not hard finding pistols without tech in them. Khan’s desperate stride to the future is going to be his downfall. Anything he’s carrying, guns, tech, trackers, those will all shut down with the press of a button. Mind you, he’ll still be packing, but it should buy you five to ten seconds to get the upper hand.”

It might not sound like a lot of time, but Jim’s made bigger decisions in a split second before. He doesn’t see why he can’t manage to disarm and secure a heavily dangerous player in the spy business in five.

“It gives you the element of surprise, not a victory,” Scotty warns. “I’ve got some other things through here, including some Kevlar for you to wear, McCoy.”

“Bones,” he corrects.

“I’m sorry?” Scotty echoes.

“Call me Bones. It’s my codename, for better or worse.”

Jim tries not to stare at him, but he’s trying to learn everything he can about the man he’s just met. He’s even more interested in him now that he knows the chemistry hadn’t been completely one-sided and he hadn’t been crazily making things up. There’s something between them and if they can just get past the burnt down apartments and people trying to kill them, maybe something can actually happen.

“Or you could go with Leo,” Jim adds nonchalantly. “He seems to like it when you shout that one.” Flashing a smirk at Bones, he’s rewarded with a promising look in Bones’ eye, like he’s evaluating exactly how Jim’s going to pay for that kind of comment.

Scotty clears his throat when the silence draws on too long. “This is going to get insufferable fast,” he mutters to himself. “Anyway, Pike’s been tracking Khan. Suit up, take as much as you need, and go talk to him. He’ll get you on his tail.”

Bones turns and gives Jim a curious look, which he interprets as a question. 

It’s one he’s seen a lot of times before.

It’s the one that asks, _do I really have to go and talk to Pike?_ Pike’s got a hell of a reputation in the business and Jim’s kind of proud that he works for the guy. No one fucks around with Pike because Pike makes sure that he takes care of his people and his house, which means he’s got the best people, the best tech, and he’s one of the smartest in the business.

Scariest, too, which is why Jim’s faintly amused that Bones seems to be halfway to frightened to have a conversation with the man when, in truth, Bones is probably scarier than Pike because he’s just as grumpy and he’s still in his prime.

Not that Jim is about to tell Pike he’s past his prime.

He doesn’t have a deathwish. 

“Pike, huh,” Bones finally speaks, clearing his throat and staying put where he is. “Didn’t think I’d be meeting the big man until the mission was over with and you were getting me to sign my life away to the agency.”

“Someone burns my place down, Pike gets interested,” Jim replies with a cavalier shrug, like he doesn’t actually care. “Who’d have thought? Don’t worry, he’s ‘requested’ that I’m there too, which means he’s probably going to yell at me for ages about how I’m an idiot. Actually, I have no clue why you don’t want to meet him, you two will probably get on famously. You both think I’m too arrogant and impulsive.”

“You’re right,” Bones replies. “He sounds like my kind of guy.”

Bones brushes past Jim on his way upstairs and Jim keeps pace as best as he can. For all that Jim is glad that Bones doesn’t seem to mind the thought of meeting Pike anymore, he still feels somewhat wary about the meeting that’s about to happen.

Yeah, Bones is good, but if something happens between him and Pike, the deal might fall through. Pike has a habit of daring people to do things and Jim doesn’t really want to know what happens if, maybe, Pike dares Bones to do something that takes him away from here. They’ve only just begun and Jim’s not ready to lose something that holds so much potential.

“Here?” Bones says, rapping on the door.

“Only if you don’t want to run,” says Pike from two feet away, drawing open the door and giving Jim a wry smile. “See? He came after all. You owe me twenty bucks.” 

Jim holds up a folded twenty and sets it on the table in front of him, smirking as he settles into the chair and decides that he’s going to keep his nose out of this and watch the carnage.

The trouble is that after the small talk pleasantries are exchanged, Pike and Bones fall into this weird repartee where they talk about old acquaintances and their preferred guns. If Jim didn’t know any better, he’d say they were getting along without any fronts or false identities in the mix. He probably shouldn’t be jealous of his boss, but he is. If this is what it’s going to be like when Bones works with them, he’s going to have to have a talk with Pike.

More realistically, Jim’s going to complain a lot about Pike taking up all of Bones’ time.

“So,” Pike says, and Jim draws his attention out of his daydreams to see that Pike has unearthed a file and a pen. “You ready to sign with us?”

Bones doesn’t move even an inch. 

“Not yet.”

“See, I told you he wouldn’t fold so easily,” Jim says, quietly smug that he’d been right about _that_ much. 

“Once Khan’s dealt with, then I sign your papers,” Bones says. “I figure maybe we ought to make sure I’m gonna live to see a career beyond this. Besides, think of this takedown as an audition,” he drawls. “You do well, I’m still impressed, I sign.”

Pike looks to Jim, the expression on his face clear.

It says, _that means you, kid_.

Since he started to work for Pike, Jim had never backed down from a challenge and he doesn’t intend to start now. “Then consider me ready to dazzle,” he promises, giving a firm nod. “C’mon, there’s no time like the present to get moving. Khan isn’t going to wait forever and if he burns down my backup apartment, I’m gonna be pissed.”

* * *

It takes another three hours for Scotty to get them loaded up with the data and equipment they need and Jim spends most of it at Bones’ side, jittery and anxious – not because he’s worried about how the day will go, but because he’s keen to get this over with so all the questions that are up in the air will be solved. 

“If you don’t stop doing that, I’m gonna throw up on you from motion sickness,” Bones mutters, reaching out to forcibly put his hand over Jim’s, which he’s been tapping on his knee. “Seriously. Stop. What the hell are you so worried about?”

“I’m not,” Jim stubbornly insists.

“Funny, because you damn well look it to me.”

Jim huffs. He could get defensive again, but doesn’t think that’ll go very well. “Fine,” he says, the word so tight that if it were an elastic band, it’d have snapped a long time ago. “So sue me for being wary that the biggest threat in the business is after me because I’m good in bed and you have a big mouth.”

Bones shoots him a glare and Jim takes that as a defiant argument.

“What, do you wanna argue that? Cuz, I mean, I wasn’t on Khan’s radar before this,” Jim points out. “He only figured out I exist because of you. And now we’re going up against him and he wants revenge and oh, hey, look, me.”

“You’re severely inflating your ego and your role in my life,” Bones says, while they wait for Scotty to strip away the last of the tech from the guns so the EMP doesn’t knock them out. “Look, yeah, you were good in bed, but I liked you before that. You were funny and you listened and I liked you in the bar. I knew you were a spy, so yeah, I was pretty upset about the notion of walking away from someone who’d understand my life and fit right in.”

Jim hadn’t been expecting _that_ and it’s enough to make him pause, recalculate where he’s going with this, and clear his throat.

“I fit, huh?”

“Better than anyone else I’d met yet.”

Jim’s still feeling somewhat wary about the fact that all of this could vanish today if things don’t go right, but the more he gets to know Bones, the more he wants to delve even deeper and find out why he has a cabin in the Canadian wilderness, where he learned to handle guns like that, and a dozen other things that are probably lurking just beneath the surface. So, at this point, his mantra is becoming a steady and swift _don’t die, stay alive, don’t die, stay alive_ while he promises himself that he’ll maul Bones and blow him until he’s seeing stars when it’s all done.

“You didn’t seem to like me very much,” Jim says, pushing his luck since it’s true.

Bones snorts. “I said I liked you a little, not that I went blind and didn’t see all the warning signs in front of my face,” he points out. “Besides, sometimes people can’t control the kinds of idiots they like.”

“So I’m an idiot now,” Jim muses, not too offended given that he knows the opposite is true. “You’re so sweet, honey.”

Bones snorts.

“You’re gonna kick my ass for that, aren’t you?”

Bones nods calmly in a way that says it’s not going to happen now (might not even happen soon), but when it does, Jim’s going to pay for it through the nose. Hell, he probably even deserves it, not that he’ll ever say that one out loud. Again, all this is totally a welcome thing if it means he gets to survive the day and maybe go so far as to putting a bullet through Khan’s skull. That’d help him feel better for sure.

“Boys,” Scotty summons them, poking his head around the corner. “When you’re ready.”

Jim raises his brows as he exchanges a look with Bones. There’s no going back now. 

“So,” he jokes as they get up. “No time for one last quickie?”

Bones doesn’t even wait thirty seconds to smack Jim for that one.


	8. Chapter 8

The last time Jim was this armed, he was in the middle of a conflict in a country that he can’t name due to state secret confidentiality rules. Grenades attached to his belt, beautiful old guns, and so many knives, he might as well have a knife block sewed into his pants makes him feel like he’s probably jangling as he walks. Seeing as he’s currently dressed in black and trying to be really sneaky as they head for Jim’s flamed out apartment, that’s not great.

“We’ll take down the guards positioned around your place,” Bones had said, which led them here. “Not before they send a message to Khan letting him know where we are.”

So, hey, they have something resembling a plan. Jim’s had worse days. 

Jim signals to Bones when he starts to smell ash and char, wondering how much of his apartment actually wound up surviving. Jim steadies himself to take a quick look and from the brief glance he gets around the corner with a few small mirrors, not much of the apartment is still standing, by the looks of it. 

“And when Khan comes shooting for us?”

“We give Scotty the signal to hit the EMP,” Jim says, already making up his mind that he intends to get Bones out of the line of danger and yeah, so Bones might have a personal vendetta against this guy because of being fired in what Khan is trying to attempt to make permanent, but Khan had burned Jim’s house down and has made it personal.

The sooner Jim gets his fist on the man, the better.

“You want the big guy?” Jim asks. “I could use a challenge.”

Bones shoots him a disbelieving look as he peers around the corner and takes another look at the guards. They’re both burly and thick guys, tattoos peeking out from under shirts. Really, ‘big’ in this case just means that one of them has a slightly larger shoe size, from the looks of it. Jim grins winningly, like he’s making a big gesture instead of just saying he’ll help Bones. 

“Smoke grenade,” Bones requests, holding his palm open. Jim hands it over and slides on his glasses and mask to see through the fog, pressing his back against the wall to wait for the flash and bang to be over with. 

It’s kind of disappointing that Khan’s guys are as quick on the trigger as they are. Sure, they’re big and burly, but they’re so eager to get to the guns that Jim has time to propel his weight off the wall with a push of a foot and strike down Asshole #1’s jaw with the butt of his rifle, satisfied delight in the way he crumples onto the ground. He’s quick to take point on Bones’ fight, but the sickening crack of bone followed by a big shape collapsing to the ground means that Bones didn’t need the backup.

“I’m starting to see where you got your nickname,” Jim says, checking that one of the guards is still conscious – which, yup, the guy with the newly broken wrist is shakily fumbling for his phone – before he steps inside, peering around the cavernous disaster that used to be his apartment. “Is it wrong that I find it hot? I mean, so long as you never do it to me.”

Even in the clearing smoke and dark lighting, you’d have to be blind to miss the glower on Bones’ face, which Jim is starting to think is just his version of a smile. 

He elicits another painful sound of cracks when he steps on the guy’s ankle, which means the poor guy definitely isn’t running out of here anytime soon. Jim winces sympathetically, but he kind of gets the feeling that Bones is taking a private sort of joy out of it and hey, it’s not like Jim’s the sort of guy who gets off on broken bones.

At least, he didn’t think he was until now.

They drift away, making sure the guard is telling Khan about everything while Jim searches through his kitchen for anything that might be saved. He finds a spatula and oh, hey, one of his egg-timers. Jim wiggles it in the air with an excited grin. “I can make us poached eggs, still.” He pockets it, makes sure it’s not beside a grenade because the last thing he needs is to try and stun Khan with an egg-timer.

While the guard is calling for reinforcements, Jim drops to open the fireproof safe and get out the things that are actually important to him, sledging up his go-bag onto the counter.

“I think if this goes well, we should take off.”

Bones, who’s keeping his eye on the door like the well-trained and good spy he is, spares the time to afford Jim a flicker of a glance. “Where’d you have in mind?”

“Somewhere tropical. Somewhere far, far away. Pike owes me a ton of vacation time.”

“And you want to go with me, huh? When, if ever, did I give you the idea that I’m a ray of sunshine?”

“No, but I’ve seen you naked,” Jim replies, shoving the bag behind him where he’ll be able to grab it quickly, trying not to think about what happens if all this goes wrong. “I’m thinking wherever we go needs to have a nudist beach because, seriously, Bones, you are all over hot,” Jim praises, shaking his head. He peers to the side, raising his eyebrows. “You think he’s done telling Khan where we are?”

“Yeah, probably,” Bones agrees, cocking the tranq gun and shooting without hesitating. Jim wants to argue that keeping some random asset of Khan alive isn’t a good idea, but they might be able to use him in a negotiation. If nothing else, he might work as a body shield. Besides, Jim might get a chance to put the asshole out of his misery himself and that’s never a bad thing.

He figured out at a pretty young age that he enjoyed working out his frustrations with violence.

“Tell you what,” Bones says, settling back against the wall, one knee planted to the ground so he can move quickly, if need be. “If we get out of here, I’m going to head back up to my cabin and take a week off to prepare myself for what’s coming, working with you.” He says it like it’s a bad thing, but before Jim can open his mouth to protest, Bones keeps going. “And then I’ll buy us two plane tickets to Europe and we’ll get lost for a while. I could cope with two months in Europe.”

“Nudist beach,” is all Jim says, even though he’s on board even if there isn’t a beach filled with a lot of naked bodies on it. He breathes in and out deeply, trying to keep his heart rate steady. It isn’t even nerves, at this point, so much as the anticipation of what his life might look like on the other side of today.

One more hurdle. 

Trouble is, it’s a pretty big damn hurdle and it’s not like they have any great back-up plans in place, here. They could fill the silence with inane chatter, but the eerie quiet is giving Jim a chance to mentally prepare. He’s so deep into his own world that the text from his phone gives him a jolt. 

“It’s Scotty,” Jim says, shoving the phone away once he’d glanced at the text. “Khan’s on his way up. He says we should use the EMP when he’s close so we don’t waste it.” Jim smoothes his palm over his pant-leg in steady repetition, feeling wary about all of this, but ready for it to be over. This hadn’t even been his fight until the assignment for the Russian and suddenly he might have a casual boyfriend, has recruited three top agents from another agency, and might die today.

Well, you can say this for sure – Jim Kirk never does anything in halves.

Jim turns his ear to the door, waiting expectantly for the footsteps to creep across broken glass and wood. With a quick glance towards Bones, the tension he’s feeling isn’t only him. 

“We’ve got this,” Jim says, but it’s mostly himself he’s trying to convince.

Bones gives him a dubious look that makes his eyebrows do something that probably shouldn’t be half as sexy as it is, but hey, Jim’s infatuated. Bones could stand over him with a knife and fillet him and he’d find part of him arousing. 

“James,” comes a low voice from the demolished entrance of the apartment, “I’m disappointed. You didn’t tidy for company.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t exactly expect my last visitors to blow everything up,” Jim shouts over the counter, sliding a little lower to give himself extra cover as he digs out the EMP to go through the steps of getting it unprotected so he can take out Khan’s tech, if only for a few seconds. “Seriously, Khan, you need to get some henchmen with manners.”

“It’s the peril of hiring these days,” Khan replies, his voice getting closer. “After all, when I instructed them to wait until you were _inside_ the building, I didn’t think I would have to repeat myself.”

Sure, it’s no surprise that he’d wanted to murder Jim, but it’s still something that Jim’s taking kind of personally. He struggles to crawl over Bones, even though Bones is trying his best to hold him back, but even though this might be about Bones, it’s Jim’s apartment and it’s Jim’s life, so this is Jim’s fight.

“Jim!” Bones hisses.

“He wants to kill me, I get to kill him back,” Jim says. “At least let me shoot him.”

Bones gives him a pointed look, which reminds Jim that he has the EMP tucked away in his hand and that they’re waiting to get the chance to kill him. Sure, Jim thinks that going with the plan is a perfectly acceptable thing, but at the same time, he really wants to do this the old fashioned way. 

“C’mon, Khan,” Bones calls out, trying to draw him closer with his voice. “This is between us. Leave Jim out of it. I slept with him once, you really think I got so attached?” 

“Yes.”

It’s one word, but it rings with such passionate, convicted truth that even Jim completely buys it. Sure, he’s biased, but he thinks he’d be completely on board if Bones were that into him. It’s not like one night is a good predictor of the rest of their lives, but it’s a good vote for chemistry.

“You never talk about your conquests, but you spoke of him with tentative pleasure and joy, as if you considered him an equal.”

“Not much of an equal, I stole his asset from under his nose,” Bones retorts, as if he’s forgetting that Jim’s _right there_. Jim’s protest of ‘asshole, I didn’t know who...’ is quieted by Bones shooting him a glare. “Come on,” he coaxes, and slowly shifts so he can glance around the corner. “You’re one against two. You can’t think this ends well for you.”

“Maybe not, but I am better,” Khan growls.

“Yeah, well,” Bones says, giving Jim the nod that says it’s time to push the big red button. “You’re also a stubborn, isolated asshole,” he says, and Jim takes the opportunity to slam his palm down on top of the EMP, watching everything in a thirty-foot radius slam off, which includes Khan’s weapons and that means they’ve got about five seconds of surprise. “Go, Jim, now!”

Jim slides around the corner and manages to kick the rifle out of Khan’s hands, wrestles him for the knife, but what he doesn’t get to in time (at least, not in time to prevent the big issue) is the handgun. The gunshot reverberates in his head and his delayed reaction means that for a few seconds, he doesn’t have to feel pain. Unfortunately, the pain kicks in and starts making up for it only seconds later.

Jim winces and uses the last reserve of strength to break Khan’s wrist, gun tumbling to the ground with Jim, leaving a bloody mark against the charred wall as he goes down, hands pressed tightly to the gut wound to stop the bleeding. 

“Jim!” Bones shouts in alarm, but that’s dangerous. His attention is divided and he needs to be paying attention to Khan right now or else he’s going to get his neck broken or something worse and Jim’s not ready for that. He’s a stubborn asshole himself, he’s been shot before, and he’s completely aware that he needs to prioritize. “Jim, hold on and...”

“Later,” Jim bites out. “Khan,” he instructs. “Worry about Khan.”

It seems to do the trick. 

Even though Bones has his weapons, with Khan divested of them, it seems like Bones wants to do this old school. He strips himself of all of them and Jim forces himself to stay conscious with pinches to his side and arm, watching fuzzily as Bones takes on Khan with only his hands and feet, managing to get Khan in a chokehold.

“That’s my man,” Jim drowsily praises, blinking rapidly and watching the tables turn at least three times. Khan’s no laughing matter and he manages to break a few of Bones’ fingers, but both men seem to be on even ground. He’s struggling to keep his eyes open as his hands no longer have the strength to keep the blood within his body.

The world begins to dim around him.

He can faintly hear Bones calling out his name, can barely see the chokehold that Bones has on Khan, and the last thing Jim thinks as he slips towards the floor is, _never got to that nudist beach_ , and then the world fades away from him, all to the sound of Bones’ panicked shout of his voice.


	9. Chapter 9

In his career, Jim’s woken up way too many times in a hospital bed. Add into that all the times in his misspent childhood and he’s well-acquainted with the beeping of the monitors that are keeping him alive. He also knows the aftershock of pain feeling intimately and right now, his whole body feels like he’s been pummelled. Because of the frequency of his trips, it takes him a minute to remember what’d happened this time. The monitors seem to start going crazier, though, like they’re aware he’s waking up.

“Hey,” comes a familiar voice, though it’s not one he ever expected to end up at his hospital bedside. “Would you stop trying to make things worse?”

“Bones?” Jim gets out past dry, chapped lips. He struggles to open his eyes, surprised (but definitely delighted) to see Bones hovering beside his hospital bed, looking worse for the wear himself. Bones’ eye is purple and black, having swollen shut, and his arm is in a sling. There’s a single crutch resting against the chair that Bones is in, but as hard as Jim tries, he can’t remember anything past the first part of the fight. “What happened?”

“You checked out early, left me to fight Khan,” Bones says wryly. “Lucky for me, I’m a stubborn bastard and I could tell you were still breathing.”

Jim wants to smile, but he thinks that would probably end up hurting a whole hell of a lot. He settles for closing his eyes in relief that things worked out and they’re both drawing breath. He groans and reaches for the morphine to try and turn it down, not willing to be fuzzy in the head when he wants to have a real conversation with Bones.

“What happened?” he asks.

“About what you’d expect. After you blacked out, he got nasty and started making some dirty comments, said he’d rather I be dead than working for the enemy.”

“And?”

“And I killed him,” Bones replies, his voice hushed. “Didn’t even mean to, but I had him in a chokehold and he kept trying to get out, so I...” He doesn’t really need to say anything more for Jim to understand that Bones had snapped his neck or put a bullet in him or something else that had led to a general loss of life.

Bones is here, Khan isn’t.

That’s really about all Jim actually gives a damn about. That, and: “When do they say I can get out of here?”

“We’re sort of a package deal,” Bones says with a smile that looks regretted as soon as he gives it. “Technically, I’m not supposed to be out of bed, so if the nurses find me in here with you, I hope you’ve got a clever lie planned.”

“Why lie when I can just tell the truth and tell them you couldn’t resist me?” Jim asks with a winning smirk. 

Bones looks at him with disbelief, but he doesn’t argue. Jim thinks he’ll take whatever small victory he can get and that one doesn’t seem so hollow by half. 

“I assume I’m gonna make it?” Usually, the pain tells Jim that he’s going to be fine. It’s when things are getting numb that you have to worry. He’s equally concerned for Bones, who looks like he might actually drop dead any second now, if you gave him a too-hard poke. “No, wait, scratch that. Are _you_ gonna make it? Bones, seriously, I get that you’re pretty, but you don’t need to rough yourself up to get on my level.”

Bones shakes his head minutely. “Infant,” is all he accuses. “I’m on a lot of drugs right now and they’re making everything real nice,” he says. 

Jim opens his mouth to talk about how nice Bones actually is when a nurse, passing by, sees Bones in the chair and wanders in, looking as if she’s ready to give hell, shouting at him that he’s not supposed to be in there and should be back in his own bed and where is his IV and so on and so forth, to the point that Jim finds himself grinning that, for once, he’s not the one getting in trouble.

His laughter turns to coughing as the nurse leads Bones out of the room. He closes his eyes to try and give them a rest, but it’s short-lived.

“You look way too happy for a man who’s been shot,” Pike says wryly.

“What can I say? The bad guy is out of the picture and the prospect of me having really great sex in the near future is looking up,” Jim replies, a dazed smile on his face. It makes him glance over to his drug-drip and gives a knowing sound when he sees the morphine lined up for him. “Really glad to see that’s the drugs talking and not that I’ve lost all of my tact. Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. And guess what?” Pike looks rueful, like he can’t believe what he’s about to tell Jim. “In a show of good faith, your sex buddy offered out the location of the Russian asset when he signed his papers to join us.”

“He’s in worse shape than me, how the hell has he already signed a contract?”

Jim tries to sit up in the hospital bed, but the struggle of getting himself vertical when the pain in his body is doing its best to make him slide back onto the bed, which is a fight he eventually loses. Indignantly, he grabs the remote for the bed and makes sure to get himself propped up, even if his muscles can’t do it for himself just yet. 

“Papers,” he demands, making a ‘give it here’ motion with his hands. “C’mon, lemme see.”

Pike reluctantly sighs and hands over his phone, which has the contract pulled up on it. There are none of the wild stipulations that Jim would’ve put in here if he had been conscious while Pike had been drafting this thing up and he’s disappointed there isn’t even a bonus attached if Bones is Jim’s partner in the field.

He lets his head sink back against the waiting pillow. “I really thought you knew me well enough to put a clause in about him needing to wear pants a size too small.”

“I didn’t really think that was necessary after he told me about his plans to get you to his place for rehabilitation,” is Pike’s reply, and his smirk is an entirely unwelcoming and smug thing that Jim doesn’t need to see.

Wait, no. He doesn’t want to focus on Pike’s smugness.

He absolutely wants to focus on the part where apparently Bones wants him to stay in his apartment while they get better. True, Jim’s apartment is kind of more ash and dust than _home_ , but that’s what hotels had been invented for. Bones’ place seems like a really big show of faith and trust. Maybe it’s just because he feels guilty or something, but Jim’s kind of going to go with ‘this is really awesome news’.

“So, who’s his partner?”

“No one until his mandated medical leave is up,” Pike says firmly. “He’s as bad as you are, running around and getting himself in trouble. The two of you are getting some rest and recuperation time whether you like it or not. All I can pray is that between the both of you, either you’ll destroy each other with stubbornness or else.”

“Or else what?”

“Or else Carol has been given authority to do whatever she thinks necessary as the point person on Bones’ front door,” Pike finishes, stealing his phone back. He reaches back to hold out a round balloon with a picture of a teddy bear on it. “Here,” he says. “This was all the gift shop had.”

Jim grins like an idiot as he wraps the ribbon around the arms of his hospital bed. “I’d say I know you’re lying, but I kind of love it,” he says. In the mood he’s in, he’s not sure that anything could ruin his day. Despite the pain, he’s got a plan for the future, everyone made it out okay (except his apartment) and he’s got the promise of a lot of great sex in his future.

“Get some rest, kid,” Pike says as he reaches over to squeeze his shoulder. “You’ve got a lot more work to do for me.”

Jim’s totally okay with that. Maybe in a few weeks when moving even the slightest amount doesn’t hurt like hell, but he’ll get there.

* * *

“I thought everything in your place burned down,” Bones says as Jim brings in the fifteenth cardboard box. They’ve both finally been discharged from the hospital and with Carol and Chapel’s help, they’re moving Jim’s things into Bones’ apartment while Jim’s place gets cored out, retrofitted, and installed with all the latest technology. It’s Scotty’s way of trying to cheer Jim up and he can’t say he’s complaining.

Jim stops to direct the next few boxes to where they belong – kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, right back into the storage – and smiles beatifically at Bones. 

“That was my primary apartment,” Jim says. “This is all the stuff from my various safe houses and the secondary residence.” He quickly grabs the small box out of Chapel’s hands before her curiosity can force her to open it, since it’s the one with all of his sex toys. “Besides, it’s just until Scotty gets everything installed and then once the renovation is done, I’m home to Italian marble, hardwood floors, and apparently a bitching Jacuzzi.”

“He says bitching,” Chapel says with dismay, looking straight at Bones. “This is where you want to lay your hat?”

“Fixer-upper,” Bones says, barely glancing up from his tablet. “What’re you gonna do?”

Jim protests when Bones wanders up and grabs the box of sex toys from him without even looking up from whatever report he’s reading on his tablet. It’s both insanely rude and kind of a turn-on, but Jim’s finding out that pretty much most of what Bones does is a turn-on. He’s going to have to figure out a way to cope with it while living here because he doesn’t think perpetual cold showers are going to do the trick. 

When the boxes are all residing in corners around Bones’ surprisingly nice apartment (“Khan might have been an asshole, but we got paid well,” Bones had said by way of explanation), Carol and Chapel leave with a promise to come back and guard the door not against intruders, but against the two of them in the event they try and escape to do something like go back to work. Jim swears he’d never even think of that (even if he’s already hacked into the server at work) and Bones just raises his eyebrow.

“I ordered Chinese and I have movies,” he says flatly. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“See? We’re not going anywhere,” Jim says, perking up at the idea of Chinese food and a lazy night in. Sure, he might get twitchy around hour three, but there are parts of him that can relax. Besides, there’s a lot of getting used to one another that they have to do and he’s grateful for the privacy they’re about to get.

Carol kisses Jim’s cheek and vows that she’ll be downstairs on first watch and Chapel salutes them as she goes. With the soft click of the lock falling shut, Jim and Bones are alone for the first time in weeks and weeks, seeing as hospitals aren’t that big on privacy and definitely aren’t big on people sneaking out of their beds when they’re supposed to be resting.

“So...” Jim tries to be the one to strike up conversation.

“We should talk, huh?”

And Jim, who’s made a career out of trying to avoid talking and knows that they’re going to have to in order to figure things out, nods his head. “Tomorrow,” Jim barters, because right now they have movies, Chinese food on the way, and a very big bed of Bones’ that Jim is eager to get into. “I think you and I should pick up our unfinished business where we left off. Don’t you, _Leo_?” he suggests with a wicked smirk on his face.

“You’re so damn lucky I like you,” is all Bones grumbles, but Jim notices that he’s following him into the bedroom.

So yeah, they’ll talk. There’s no rush, no enemy, and no desperate need. They’ll get there.

And until then, Jim plans to enjoy himself.


End file.
